In which it is ruined by the addition of Middle Aged Australian Christians

I love that I am not a liar in my purported LOVE of experiencing a country rather than visiting (or ‘touristing’ per se). I connect with a place, then of course it connects back. That is my way, and it turns out I am right (well, I thought I may have been lying to myself all these years). Yet if it wasn’t insulting enough that I should bear a multitude of non-Italian speaking imbeciles (i.e. Americans) all day…I was, after a long day of ‘connecting’, seated next to two middle aged Australians! I feel at once sick and slightly (no, I’m not going to say, okay, assured or safe) CONFUSED…I mean holy fuck here I am all the way here and I have to listen to this nasally drone instead of the wonderful lyrical Italian I came here to worship. I hated experiencing the whole tourist thing all day, and it was just so continuous! Everywhere I went it was idiots with maps and terrible ‘comfortable’ clothing that almost made the beauty of Rome disintegrate. I was polite enough to only ever look at my map in the most surreptitious of ways, far away from being spotted or to any way spoil the illusion that I may have been a local, casually go about his Roman day (i.e., enhancing said tourists experience! And yes, not wanted to be judged or hated by any actual Romans).

I’m tempted to write down every thing these two Australians say because its all so common place it could be everyone I know…the most regular cookie cutter observations and responses, in particular the role playing aspect of it…and I am supposed to be in Rome, not Queensland or Penrith. I travel literally as far away as possible (i.e. different hemisphere and opposite longitude) and this happens…actually, there is a humour to it AND I’m going to try pretending that I’m her in Rome having dinner with my (imaginary but not that imaginary of you get what I mean) Aunt and Uncle here in Rome. Should I say ‘hello’?

.  .  .

Ok so I said hello or more specifically “So what part of Australia are you from?” refraining from saying ‘Stralia’ to further endow myself. Then followed many minutes of shit (during which the husband spent most of the time inside paying the bill – “cant trust them with your card you know”) followed by the man returning and offering his hand with

“I’m <name> anyway, pleased to meet you”.

“I’m Alex” I reply.

“Pleased to meet you Alan” he says, giving me a pat on the back as he and his wife leave. Somehow ignoring Alex as an Australian name. Okay.

LIES TOLD DURING THE MANY MINUTES OF SHIT:

1. I’ve lived here for three months

Mainly because after I launched my “which part…” line the woman was so surprised I was Australian vis a vis “Oh! I thought you were a native” simply because I (wow!) ordered in Italian…e.g. “Fettuccine Carbonara per favore”. And because I didn’t want to crush her somewhat astonished notion of me, the Aussie native doing so well in Rome.

2. I live in Darlinghurst

This one was mainly to preclude me from living anywhere near their reality, which it turned out was the Hunter Valley so I had no real worry. My main problem was my ‘Australia bias’ and I thought they may have been from (god!) a country town or worse, Brisbane (or as the locals call it ‘Bris-Vegas’. Urgh).

3. I am here working (on ‘websites’)

Sure, Why not! Like anyone over, say, 45, knows anything about websites.

4. Any church here is good (for Sunday Mass) – this one is compounded

First I said YES to being catholic (technically a truth) which, somewhat of a curse, led to a quasi-tirade about devotion and faith etc with many references to the Vatican et al (I should have guessed by their clothes and hairstyles)

Second (an mainly because of my ‘three months’ lie) she asked “which church on Sunday is good, we’ve planned for St Peter’s (where? what? huh?) but we don’t want to queue”. To which I offered the compound lie which also proves my Catholicism “oh yeah you’ll definitely have to queue for St. Peters”, so in its place I offer “They’re all good…do you know that stretch of road leading from the Vatican?”, blank faces, “I mean from Vatican City, heading toward Rome?”, some nods of vague understanding, in fact, the only road I know because I had walked it there and back that day, “They’re all beautiful down that road, the churches, on a Sunday, for mass”.

HER IDIOSYNCRACIES I HAD TO LISTEN TO WHILST HER HUSBAND PAID THEIR BILL

How Ireland was not as religious as she thought/wanted: she is a repeat visitor to Rome for the whole ‘being close to the Pope and the Catholic artefacts etc stuff’. This time she has dragged her (second I assume) husband along. Their last pilgrimage was to find solace in, what she thought/expected, to be the ‘deep-seated Catholicism of Ireland’. No I did not point out anything about ‘The Troubles’, I can only assume this would have somehow affirmed her appraisal of the Irish Catholics being so, um, devout. She (and her husband I think but couldn’t really tell if he was just being nice i.e. faking it, because he liked fucking this woman or whether he actually agreed) was appalled at the lack of purity and sanctity shown by (what I can only imagine she thought were) ‘her people’ (yes she had red hair). I pretty much left that whole spiel alone, preferring instead to eat my Carbonara and nod a little (oh and drink wine. Probably should have mentioned that, in the ten or so minutes we chatted, I somehow drank almost half a bottle of wine. Go figure).

NOTE ON MY UNDERSTANDINGS AS SOON AS THEY LEFT

St Peters is actually San Pietro, i.e. the MAIN church in Vatican City, the one which only an hour earlier (or so) I had ascended to the top of (the Basilica). This happens to be THE church that on Sundays the Pope himself holds mass. So I had inadvertently advised possible the most devout (well, zealous as far as I was concerned) Catholics to NOT attend St Peters mass and instead seek absolution in a (lesser to them) church, one that they could roll into anywhere along the main road. A lesser tourist might have been happy with my advice. Only then did I fully understand the look on their faces after hearing me dismissing, essentially, THE Pope’s mass, based on the length of a mere ‘queue’. Further, the next day as I was leaving my hotel I entered the Vatican area where they had posted huge screens of the inside of San Pietro, which was when I realised “holy fuck the Pope’s in there” or something along those lines that may be less sacrilegious.

Either I’m a liar or the best damned Rome tourist guide for certain Aussies. You can choose.